The pain in my fingers was excruciating. They were so cold that they had gone from tingly to downright painful. However, I was on a mission and determined to succeed so I endured the agony. Besides, I had remembered reading somewhere that the real danger of frostbite doesn’t occur until after your extremities become numb. So I forged ahead through the snow, wind, and cold getting ever closer to my target. I would capture my prey at all costs … then my fingers went numb.
That was when the panic set in and I decided to return to base camp. At this point, I should probably tell you that my base camp was my vehicle that was parked a mere thirty yards away, and that my mission was to get an amazing photo of a short-eared owl. I know, I know. Not near as dramatic as my first paragraph may have initially sounded, but it was exciting to me nonetheless. I enjoy outdoor photography and, at the time, wildlife photography was my emphasis. I had dreams of becoming the next National Geographic photographer and getting the perfect shot was important.
On this particular instance, I was pursuing the short-eared owl that migrates down from Canada to winter at a wildlife area near my hometown in Ohio. It was a frigid Saturday morning a little after 7:00 A.M. It had snowed a few inches the day before but then cleared up overnight allowing the warmth from the already cold air to escape and get down to 10 degrees Fahrenheit. In case you aren’t familiar with Great Lakes Region winters, I’d like to point out that there is an ever present humidity that hangs in the air and is usually coupled with a continuous light breeze. So the 10 degrees felt like six below. It was freezing.
I had been driving along the back roads of the wildlife area drinking my coffee with the heat blasting when something on a low-lying branch about thirty yards off the road caught my eye. I quickly pulled off to the side of the road and pulled out my binoculars. Sure enough, it was a short-eared owl. Now the challenge would be whether I could get out my photography gear and get it set up before scaring the owl away … and that was when the fingers started freezing.
I had gloves on but they were the kind that had the fingertips cut out so that I could easily feel and adjust all of the controls on my camera. To make things worse, they were also constantly touching cold metal from the tripod and telephoto lens as I readied my gear. And, I had to do all of this moving as slowly as possible so as to not startle the owl, therefore prolonging the exposure to the elements.
I finally got everything set up and moved as close as I dared before taking the first shot. Keep in mind that I had just started my outdoor photography endeavor and didn’t have very much money so my equipment wasn’t the greatest, especially my telephoto lens. I always had to work on getting closer to the wildlife since my equipment couldn’t bring the subjects closer to me. Through all of my photo adventures, I had learned that it was important to get the first shot then slowly work at getting better shots until the opportunity had passed.
So that’s what I was doing. I would take one shot, move a little closer, or slightly change my angle, and take another shot. After about the third or forth shot was when my fingers went numb. As I mentioned, I panicked and left my equipment to return to the vehicle so my fingers could warm up. The bad thing about frozen, numb fingers is that the excruciating pain returns before they warn up to normal. Ouch!
Once my fingers were toasty, I covered them a little better to reduce the exposure as I headed back to the camera. I would move the camera a little closer, expose my fingers again to take a photo, move a little closer and take another, then my fingers would move past tingly so I’d go back to the car to warm them up. I really didn’t want to have to deal with two stages of freezing and warming pain again. I was able to repeat this process several times before getting an acceptable shot. For whatever reasons, the owl let me get to within several feet without flying away. I don’t know if it didn’t view me as a threat at the time or if it was so cold that it just didn’t want to move. You can see the photo I was able to capture below. Even after all of these years of photography, it is still one of my favorites … and seems to be others’ favorite as well.
I was reminded of this story and the photo because I went out to the wildlife area after work yesterday to see if the short-eared owls were again down from Canada. They are. I only saw one yesterday but have seen as many as two-dozen on different trips. If you’d like to see a short-eared owl, take a pair of binoculars and drive around the roads at Killdeer Plains Wildlife Area near Harpster, Ohio. The owls are usually there from December through February. The best times to view them are at dawn and dusk but I tend to see more in the evening usually from one hour before sunset until there isn’t any light left to see. And if you don’t mind investigating some of the evergreen stands around the wildlife area, you might also get a chance to see the long-eared owls and the saw-whet owls that also migrate down from Canada.
